Genie-us

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Genie-us

Did you use to read fairy tales when you were younger? Here's a modern fairy tale with a difference!

Instructions

Do the preparation exercise first and then read the story. Don't worry if you don't understand every single word. Then do the exercises to check your understanding.

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Preparation

Before you read the story do this exercise. It will help you to understand some of the more difficult words in the story.

Genie-us

by Louise Cooper

‘If you want to marry my daughter,' said the king, 'you must prove yourself worthy of her hand.’ 'Anything!' cried the poor young man. 'I love the princess, and I will brave any peril for her!' The princess stood behind the throne, crying. 'Right then,' said the king. 'You must climb to the top of the Ice Mountain, and fetch the magic lamp that a wicked rival stole from me.' ‘I’ll do it!' the young man declared, and rushed from the throne room. The king chuckled. 'That's fixed him! The cheek of it - poor as a church mouse, and weedy too, and he thinks he's good enough to marry my daughter!

Well, he won't be back!’ The princess was still crying. The young man might have been poor and weedy, but his love for the princess gave him courage. He struggled up the freezing, slippery slopes of the Ice Mountain. And he found the wicked rival's hideaway, where the magic lamp was hidden. (Luckily, the rival was away at the time.) Holding the lamp, he wondered what sort of magic it could do. You were supposed to rub magic lamps, weren't you?

Well, then . . . He rubbed the lamp. And—WHOOSH! A cloud of purple smoke burst out, and a genie appeared. The genie was tall and handsome and proud. He said, 'Who are you?' 'I'm a poor young man who loves the princess. And when I take the magic lamp, with you in it, back to the king, he'll let me marry her,' said the young man happily. 'In your dreams!' snorted the genie. He reached out and grabbed the young man. 'I've been in that lamp for a hundred years, and I'm fed up with it! So you can take my place—in you go!' And with another puff of smoke, the young man vanished into the lamp.

The genie picked up the lamp, grabbed a magic carpet that was rolled up in a corner, and told it to take him to the palace. 'I've brought your lamp,' he announced as he strode into the throne room. 'It isn't magic any more. But I am. And I claim your daughter's hand in marriage!'

The king looked at the genie. Tall and handsome, and magic, too! ‘That's more like it!' he said, and turned to the princess, 'Daughter, this is your future husband!' The princess stopped crying. 'Oh, goody!' she said. 'I was so afraid I'd have to marry that poor, weedy creep instead!'

I didn't like this story because it contains a lot of wickedness and meanness for example the Genie and the princess how mean they are the poor man risked his life for the princess but the princess didn't care about him :( I prefer old fairytales as they are less mean and the good always wins, with people who deserve to be happy are always happy at the end.

Hi Mariamffa11 you do understand that the little mermaids story actually ended in her turning into dust right and that the "old fairytales" were made to make the children not do things by scaring them. Another classic called the red riding hood ends with the hunter cutting up the wolfs body and then fills it with stones so when the wolf runs he collapses and dies

My favourite fairytale is The Princess and the Frog. It is about a girl who wishes to open a restaurant as her father always wished to do, and she works hard to get money for opening the restaurant, meeting a conceited guy on the way. It was very inspirational and thrilling; this is why it is my favourite.

Hi sweety123,
It's great that you like writing poems. I am afraid at the moment you can't publish your poems here on LearnEnglish Teens. In the future we would like to have more sections for users to write poems, stories and longer texts but for now it's not possible.
Best wishes, Jo (LearnEnglish Teens Team)

Finally, it was the genie who really had the happy ending. The princess was not like many princesses in usual fairy tales: They often found their true love and got married to a handsome young prince. She is something too "modern" now. Nice man didn't get what he wanted.

Hi again RehinaParker,
You've asked us this question before! Now you have lots of links to good websites to find information for your project. We won't be able to help you any more with this - but good luck!
Jo (LearnEnglish Teens Team)

Hello RehinaParker. We don't have any information about Charles Dickens on this website yet. He is one of the most famous writers in British history - so there should be lots of information on the internet. Have you tried wikipedia?